Restore my church Day 1 - Word

Day 1 - Word

 Restore – what does this mean?

-  Recovering from brokenness

-  Returning to foundations.

The Church is broken, but also beautiful, mature, and wise.

We recognise it as a living organism and so we don’t aim to restore it to how it was like in the early days, but we can pick out the key foundations to heal it – healing the world is in desperate need of.

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To do this, we go back to basics. How can one effect the restoration of the Church?

“Learn to hold loosely what is not eternal.”

There aren’t many things which are eternal – God, His Word, people (eternal beings!), love. Truth.

We enjoy the gifts of the world, but we are not made for this world. We’re made for something greater.

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 “When God created the world, He built it on three pillars.” – quoted from a Jewish leader (CCC 1096 – we’re called to go back to our Jewish roots so as to grasp a fuller, richer sense of our faith. After all, our liturgy is a Jewish liturgy.)

Torah, Avodah, Gemilut Chasidim.

In other words, word, worship, and works of mercy.

If these were strong enough that God built the world on them, how much more our lives? These three are the pillars of our spiritual lives.

In Matthew 5-7, Jesus takes us through the importance of word, worship, and works of mercy. This was the first thing He said in Matthew. The last thing he says in Matthew (23-25) is also related to the word, worship, and works of mercy.

These three pillars are tied together in intimate ways, and mass is where they meet! In our mass, we see this same flow: Word --> Eucharist --> going forth in faith to love and serve the world (works of mercy). We’re to be lived, living liturgies!

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Torah – not just the law. Direct transation: to throw something. It means to throw and hit a target. Torah is the same word which is used to describe a javelin being thrown and hitting an enemy. It is also the same word which is used to the action of pointing a finger to give directions to someone who is lost.

Clearly, the word is designed to give us guidance.

BIBLE: Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. HAHA.

It teaches us how to know Him, and how to live. It helps position us to where we are to go. It gives us wisdom for life, death, and everything in between.

However, the word is not a something; a written word of God. It’s a someone. A person.

Jesus Christ is the word made flesh, the person at the heart of the word. He is the Torah. His life is the instruction book. Everything he did and said guides what we do and say.

“Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ” – St Jerome

The word puts people in contact and in community with Christ, who alone brings us to the Father through the presence of the Holy Spirit. Only Jesus can lead us to the heart of the Father.

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Truth is not just correct doctrine, or the Catechism. It is ultimately a person.

It is a bridal moment each time we open the bible.

There is no place we can enter the truth more deeply than when we come to the table of the Eucharist.

Jesus desperately wants to enter into a relationship with us.. That’s why He gave us the bible.

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How can we enter the new springtime of the Church which JPII spoke of?

-  We need to remind people how intimately the word of God is tied to the mass. The mass is so deeply rooted in the Word of God – priests’ prayers, postures, gestures.. The signs of bread, wine, and water.. Isaiah 6 – Sanctus

-  Recognise the importance of homilies. They can be teaching sessions for interpretation. We always study the word in a community of faith, not just Jesus and me. We have the Magisterium, and others. Homilies can be a vehicle as well – the primary place where the Spirit can show how scripture should be interpreted.

-  Appropriate the word of God more fully. Collegeville, St John commentary, Little Rock, Great Bible adventure timeline

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Pope Benedict XVI: The singular spiritual practice that if leaders effectively promote and people enthusiastically embraced which can usher in the new spiritual springtime of the church is Lectio Divina (sacred or divine reading).

-  Guigo the Carthusian monk

-  Benedictine tradition – they are responsible for keeping this tradition alive. Ora et labora – work and pray.

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Four steps: like four rungs on a ladder from earth to heaven. Guigo the Carthusian uses the metaphor of eating to illustrate these four steps:

1.   Lectio (reading). Recommended: choose the Gospel passage of the day.

It is like putting food in your mouth. Mass – Eucharist

Read the passage aloud two to three times. God’s word is meant to be verbalised. Before the Bible existed, it was oral tradition which served to make disciples of the nations.

Lectio helps us to go inward.

2.   Mediato (reflecting). Like when you’re enjoying a great mouthful of food, certain flavours will rise to the surface (in the case of Scripture, words or phrases - these leap out and reach you in the pews). Focus on those.

The word “reflecting” is inadequate to show us what the Jewish meant by “meditate”.

Old Testament: Josh, Psalms 1, 2 – introduction to all of the psalms. These were akin to twin doors of the temple that is the book of Psalms, welcoming us into a tower of praise.

Psalm 1: “Blessed is the one who meditates on my word day and night.”

We think of it as a purely intellectual exercise, but God did not – he chose a food word, “haggah”, to describe meditation.

This same word is used to describe a sound which an animal would make when it has caught its prey; a sort of growling, or a purring sound of pleasure.

A practice which rabbis carried out – children would go to their first day of school without breakfast, and begin by learning the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. As the morning went on, they were given slates on which they would write these alphabets. “The study of Torah is my vocation”. Soon, hunger sets in, and the leaders would take these slates and cover them with honey.

There’s something about food and faith. Psalm 19 – Your word, O Lord, is like honey on my lips. And the greatest sacrament we celebrate is a feast!

Thus meditation is like chewing on the word of God.

3.   Orato (responding). Take what God brings to your attention and create a prayer back to him.

It’s like a dialogue with the cook. Surely, if you enjoy a good meal, you’d want to get the recipe!

How do I take the invitations to go out and turn these into a prayer?

4.   Contemplato (resting). Give God some quiet time where you just “rest” in His presence.

Set aside time for God, and time to listen.

We can’t hear him because of all the noise today’s world brings us – FACEBOOK!

Show God hospitality; create space for Him.

5.   Actio

We’re called to be the word of God enfleshed. The Church is called to be a new sort of incarnation; to metabolise the word.

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Choose the time of day when you can be most alert and attentive to what God has to say to you. Can we give God just 1% of our day?

St Francis lives it out – You might be the only bible someone ever reads. May your life reflect the Word. Sometimes, you can be a living testimony without even saying a word.

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Lectio Divina – Dr Tim Gray

Praying Scripture for a change.